“Remember, we’ve had some success already. When we changed her name from Lisa to Jessica she’d fought that tooth and nail. Remember how good it felt when she finally acknowledged the new name. Victory will be ours.” Riley finished.
“Getting her to acknowledge a new name is not the same as getting her to forget who she is and how she got here,” Josh said. How, could she forget? He knew he would never forget her screams in the middle of the night.
“She’ll never forget,” Angus grumbled. “She’ll find some way to escape.”
“If she escapes, we’ll find her and kill her. That’s all there is to it.” Riley said.
“Amen,” Angus said.
Josh looked from Jim to Scott to see if they had as hard a time believing that as he did. Neither Riley nor Angus had been able to kill her two years ago, nor when she shot Scott. What made them think they could now?
He looked down at the comic book he held in his hand. Here was the one thing that had got him an in with Jessica. They shared a love of comic books. When they were alone, things were much different than when they were around the others.
Okay, Jim and Scott didn’t seem to affect things much, but Riley and Angus made a big difference in how he and she related to one another. He knew the same was true for Jim, he’d seen him playing cards with Jessica before. He knew that Scott was always giving Jessica updates on the horses, that seemed to be a bond for them … But Riley and Angus had nothing. He hoped for Jessica’s sake, that Riley’s new plan would work. If not, there could be a lot more pain coming for her.
“Since that’s agreed, you can go get Jessica now Josh,” Riley said.
Josh disappeared into the basement. Riley looked at the comic book that lay on the sofa. Since when had Jessica owned anything? Josh had said that it was Jessica’s.
Riley checked himself. There were other things to worry about than this. Jessica had sat on the sofa reading a comic rather than formulating some new plan to escape. That was good enough for Riley.
Jessica pulled hard against the cold steel of the handcuff. It didn’t matter, she knew from bitter and long experience that there was no way out of the basement.
At least now she had an excuse to just sit and think, rather than run around the basement frantically pulling on the barred windows, and trying to find a loose brick in the foundation.
She laughed despite herself. As far as she could figure it was almost two years since her family had been murdered and she’d come to this disgusting place.
For a year she’d been put in the stupid basement and for the past few months she’d been off the leash and left untied. Without fail, every time she was free to move around, she would frantically search the same windows, the same walls, with the same outcome.
It didn’t seem to matter though, because she knew she’d do it again, the next time she was uncuffed. She raised her eyes to the ceiling and wished she could get some indication as to whether her family forgave her for the concessions she’d made to get herself free of the leash. She felt even guiltier because she knew that under no circumstances would she let herself be put back on the leash.
“Sorry,” she whispered out loud.
She couldn’t help but find the little bits of happiness that she was getting with Jim, Scott and Josh, likable. If she pretended enough, she could actually forget that these three men had anything to do with her family’s deaths, with her own ordeal.
“I’m weak … “ she muttered, dropping her head against the back of the sofa.
Her eyes landed on the universal gym that sat in the middle of the basement floor.
She spent hours, daily, sitting on this sofa, watching Jim, Scott and Josh work out. Riley and Angus used it as well, she knew, but she was never brought down to watch them.
An idea dawned on her. Rather than waste her time trying to find an exit where there wasn’t one, maybe she could use the time on the universal gym. They always double bolted the basement door when they left her downstairs. She’d hear the bolts open, giving her plenty of time to get back to the sofa before one of them came down the stairs.
She may be morally weak, but physically, she wouldn’t have to be.
How could she account for the sweat though? It was too easy. She could just pretend to be asleep and having a bad dream. She sweated like crazy when she dreamed about her family. She’d do it … she’d have to make sure that she wasn’t handcuffed though. Somehow, all of this would lead to her escape. She had to believe that. She heard the locks on the basement door tumble. Her heart raced. Couldn’t they just forget her down there for a while … forever maybe?
Josh closed the basement door behind him and Jessica.
The men had settled around the table again, drinking coffee. Riley watched Jessica stand silently beside Josh.
“Bring her here Josh. Has she had breakfast yet?”
“Not yet,” Josh replied, leading Jessica to the table by the arm. “We were going to work out before eating.”
“I said good morning to you earlier Jessica, and your response was less than satisfactory. You’ve been told that you are expected to give us each a morning kiss and say good morning, I have yet to see you do that.”
Jessica stood motionless, as if she hadn’t heard a word. Jessica closed her eyes. Why couldn’t they just leave her alone?
Angus, who had been slouching, pulled himself up in his seat. Riley stared hard at Jessica, his teeth clenching tighter and tighter. His face grew red.
“Morning kisses,” Josh whispered to Jessica.
Jessica turned to Josh. He had dirty blonde hair, and brown eyes. As with the other men his body was bulging muscle. She felt the hard muscle as she laid her hand on his forearm for support. She forced her eyes up and looked at his thin, hard lips. He had stubble on his chin, just a light smattering of hair. She knew he would shave it off soon. The one thing she was thankful for with Josh was that unlike Angus with his sandpaper skin, Josh kept his face fairly smooth. At least his nightly assaults on her didn’t add stubble burn to her suffering.
“Good morning,” she muttered and tried to force her eyes to his. But Josh was leaning in to her lips already. Despite how hard his lips looked, when they landed on hers, they were soft, searching. For a moment she was afraid he’d slide his tongue into her mouth too. Instead, he abruptly moved away. Jessica looked down at his chest, it was heaving. In a moment he cleared his throat,
“Now the others …” he said and nudged her toward the kitchen table.
Jessica flicked her eyes up quickly and to her relief she saw Scott and Jim sitting just to her left. She went to Scott. He had brown hair and deep dark brown eyes. He, like the others, seemed larger than life, even sitting in a chair. They prided themselves on staying in shape, and through Scott’s t-shirt and jeans, muscles bulged. She stopped in front of him. He’d shaven that morning, his face had a chiseled yet smooth look.
Knowing how he looked, how he felt, in detail was the reason Jessica was terrified of Riley and Angus. She realized now that these new rules, their strange demands of her, brought her too far into their personal space. And that allowed Riley and Angus, particularly Angus, to terrify her in a far more personal way. Odd as it seemed, it was even worse than when he raped her.